Parkwire, The Daily Digest of Global Protected Area News

West Coast rockfish species in deep collapse only 20 years ago have multiplied rapidly in large marine protected areas off Southern California, likely seeding surrounding waters with enough offspring to offer promise of renewed fishing, a new study has found.

(Reuters) - A retried Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer was sentenced on Wednesday by a U.S. judge to five years and two months in prison, after pleading guilty to 10 money laundering charges related to a scheme to smuggle Arctic narwhal tusks.

Arborist Curtis Tilghman sees the national parks like no one else. He’s been in a tree over the grave of Thomas Edison. He’s cut branches under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. He’s repaired tree damage in the Chalmette National Cemetery and cut trees from an airboat at the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.

Last week, a rare wild bison was spotted wandering alone near the town of Lebus in eastern Germany. A local official, alarmed that the animal could be dangerous, ordered hunters to shoot it and one of them did, using a rifle to kill an animal that had not freely roamed Germany for several hundred years, conservationists say.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's draft report on national monuments he believes should be reduced in size or opened to resource extraction was not run by U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials for fact-checking and contains a number of errors, according to agency officials.

Pangolins, one of the most trafficked mammals in the world, are fast disappearing from earth. Yet, we know very little about these solitary animals. Even basic information such as pangolins’ populations is severely lacking, scientists say, making it difficult to plan conservation actions to save the animals.

Instead of shipping poached rhino horns whole or in chunks, transnational criminal networks have started manufacturing jewelry and other rhino-horn trinkets in southern Africa, according to a new report from conservation NGO Traffic.